


Coffee and the Meaning of Life

by potentiality_26



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Torchwood
Genre: Canon Relationships, Character Death Fix, Children of Earth Fix-It, Crossover, Fix-It, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“It’s ascending a few people, Janus,” the handsome man said serenely.</em>
</p><p><em>“It’s ascending almost a</em> hundred <em>people, Daniel,” the man in the beige pajamas snapped.  “This is not a good idea.”</em></p><p>Or, how Ianto Jones ascended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee and the Meaning of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Children of the Earth and SG-1 season six, this contains spoilers for those seasons. It's very old, and written in blissful ignorance of anything in the Torchwood canon post COE. I'm not sure if my use of ascended-Janus is entirely SGA compliant, but I would like to think that if he was out there he and Daniel would have become friends.

In the morning before the hospital and the hitchhiker, before the Hub blew up and everything changed forever, Ianto went out for coffee.  
  
After thousands of Styrofoam cups filled with cheap barely-brown water, Ianto had learned to make his own coffee, flawlessly.  He selected the beans himself, and ground them carefully, spending mornings in the kitchen before anyone else arrived simply inhaling.  He’d found solace, over the years, in a perfectly made cup of coffee.  
  
There was one shop, though, on a street corner.  
  
It was small, and the coffee was strong and complex.  The woman who ran it was wrinkled, and like the drink she sold bitter, just slightly ribboned with pale streams of sweetness.  
  
It was never full, because she was rude, and she didn’t supply extra cream, sugar, or artificial sweetener of any kind.  The cup you bought was the cup you drank, and it was precision itself, if you knew what you were about.  There was no Styrofoam in the whole of the shop, no takeaway of any kind.  People were in too much of rush to bother with it, usually.  
  
Ianto was having a good day, that morning- a slow day.  Jack promised to call him when he found the man they were looking for in the sea of hospital patrons and he could sit and enjoy a hot drink fashioned by a woman who was as much a master of the art as he was.  
  
As he seated himself with his mug and scone, he saw two unfamiliar men seated behind cups of coffee at the corner booth.  
  
He was surprised, as few people came here and those who did were regulars, often sitting for hours with books and enjoying the flavors.  
  
One of the men had dark hair, and wore what looked like beige pajamas, with accents of white.  Ianto shuddered, and was surprised that no one was staring at this man, until he glanced around and realized that there was no one there to stare.  
  
The second man caught Ianto’s eye.  He wore a cream cable-knit sweater and slacks.  His hair was short and honey-brown.  He looked somehow rumpled and wonderful at the same time.  
  
He was startlingly handsome, the man in the sweater.  Ianto didn’t feel bad noticing, but he did spare a thought for Jack and wonder if he _should_ feel bad.  
  
Once, he’d known exactly where the two of them stood.  Jack was unlike anyone else in the world, and none of the labels in the world would quite fit his relations with anyone.  But now, people _did_ label them- they did it all the time- and Jack never said a thing.  
  
Within their unnamed and undiscussed _something_ , Ianto had never been shy of looking at other people.  Once or twice, he’d done more than look.  He knew Jack had done the same.  
  
Now, though, everyone was calling them a couple, and that altered his duties within the relationship.  He would _never_ have looked elsewhere while he was with Lisa, had circumstances not forced him to do so.  In a relationship, a _couple_ \- he hated the word- there were promises, commitments.  And Jack never said a thing.  
  
“You can’t drink that, you know.”  The man in the pajamas was addressing the man in the sweater, his tone a little harsh.  
  
The man in the sweater had leaned very close to his cup, without drinking.  He simply breathed, a quite captivating expression of bliss on his face.  “I know,” he returned.  “But-” he broke off, making a sound that Ianto had never really heard outside the bedroom.  Ianto couldn’t help the light shudder that went through him.  The man was truly gorgeous, and he had the bluest eyes Ianto had ever seen outside Jack Harkness.  
  
“Can’t believe I’m here,” his companion muttered.  “Can’t believe I let you drag me into this.”  
  
“It’s ascending a few people, Janus,” the handsome man said serenely.  
  
“It’s ascending almost a _hundred_ people, Daniel,” the man in the beige pajamas snapped.  “This is _not_ a good idea.”  
  
That was when Jack called.  Ianto finished his coffee, glancing once over his shoulder at the two men at the corner table as he left.  He drove to the hospital.  
  
And then, all hell broke loose and Ianto forgot about what he saw in the coffee shop.  
  
He remembered it again, though, when Jack’s tearstained face faded, not into darkness but bright light, and the handsome man in the cream sweater replaced Jack crouching beside him.  
  
Ianto felt strange, but not ill.  He managed to say, “I saw you a few days ago,” but he wasn’t sure why he said it.  
  
“Oh.  Sorry about that,” the man replied.  “I don’t know why you did.  I’m still new to all of this, to tell you the truth.”  
  
“Where are we?” Ianto asked, sitting up quickly.  
  
“It’s hard to explain.”  The man frowned.  “Your head would be the best answer, I suppose.  This isn’t… real, as such.”  
  
“I’m dead,” Ianto said, feeling empty.  
  
“No,” the man- Ianto remembered his companion calling him Daniel- amended.  “You’re dying.  A virus wouldn’t kill a person that quickly.  It’s just silly to think that one could.  You’re in something like a coma.  But… you will die, before anyone figures it out, I’m afraid.”  
  
“Oh,” Ianto murmured.   After everything that had happened to him- all the strange people he’d met, all the strange things he’d seen- it was easy to simply… accept.  He thought about the horror Thames House- of all the innocent people screaming and dying, of his own terrible death.  A man, he thought, shouldn’t be able to be embarrassed about how he died.  
  
Yet, he was embarrassed- embarrassed and ashamed.  He felt ill now, but he knew it had nothing to do with any virus.  
  
“Anyway, this is place was generated from your mind.”  Daniel glanced around.  “It’s very… orderly, isn’t it?”  
  
Ianto looked around himself, trying to breathe through the waves of despair he felt when he thought about the carnage he had just left.  
  
Around him, he saw a far brighter version of the Torchwood archives.  Instead of the letter labels he had placed the shelves, however, he saw dates.  Every year of his life.  
  
He shrugged miserably.  
  
Daniel ruffled his own hair and thrust his hands into his pockets.  Ianto was entranced by the motion.  “I’m here to help you,” he said, a little sheepishly, as if he were admitting to having done something shameful.  
  
“Me?” Ianto snorted.  A wave a bitterness passed through him, bitterness he hadn’t known was there.  “All those people… it was my fault, wasn’t it?  It was my idea to…”  
  
“Not your fault,” Daniel returned quickly.  “And anyway, I’m helping them, too.  Janus and me, I mean.”  He practically glowed with pride when he mentioned the other man.  
  
Ianto frowned.  “Who are you?” he asked.  
  
“Doctor Daniel Jackson,” the man replied easily.  
  
“And where are they now?  The other people from Thames house?”  
  
“Those that wished to have ascended already, actually.  You’re the last one.”  
  
“Ascended?”  
  
“To a higher plane of existence.  There were beings, you see.  Our ancestors.  They evolved to a point that they could transform into pure energy.  In that way, they could travel the universe learning and… and understanding.  This is... meaning-of-life-stuff, and I’m not explaining it very well.  I never could.  And it’s new to me, too, in a way.”  
  
“New to you?”  
  
“I used to travel to other planets, and I learned about ascension.  And a being I met- you know, out there-” here, Daniel gestured vaguely- “helped me, the way I’d like to help you.”  
  
Ianto swallowed, trying to take in all that he’d heard.  “And were you… dying… like me?”  
  
“Yes,” Daniel replied, nodding once.  “Radiation poisoning.”  
  
“Radiation?”  
  
“There was… this planet, Kelowna, and… look, I’d rather not talk about it.  What matters here, Ianto Jones, is you.  You’re Torchwood. You know that the universe is far more complex than most people believe.  You know that humanity has only seen a small fraction of what’s out there.  I know you’re not ready to die, and it isn’t your time, not really.  I don’t think I would be able to be here if that weren’t the case.  You have a chance to learn more, to do _more_.”  
  
Part of Ianto wanted to ask Daniel about Jack, but he knew that Jack would be fine.  
  
He thought about how long he’d worked to raise himself- to be good enough- and it seemed as though it was never enough, had never been enough.  For so long, everything had been all struggle and no gain, and he missed Owen, and Tosh, and feeling that he was actually doing something good in the world.  
  
Something in Daniel’s eyes understood all that.  
  
Daniel reached out with a bright hand.  “I could show you so much,” he said.  
  
Ianto glanced back at the half-empty shelf of the last year of his life.  Daniel was right.  It wasn’t over.  It shouldn’t be over.  
  
He took the offered hand.


End file.
